12-12-12 has Coloradans celebrating everything from weddings to sales

Sean Kluesner and Lisa Brashear will be married Wednesday, an auspicious date for numerologists, as well as folks who just like numerical alliteration. They pose at the Devil's Thumb Ranch outside of Tabernash on Tuesday. (AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post)

Wednesday is an auspicious date: 12/12/12 on the calendar, numerologically and astrologically significant, and an easy-enough date to remember as an anniversary or birthday. Lisa Brashear and Sean Kluesner will tie the knot at 12:12 p.m., two of likely thousands of people worldwide who will marry on the last triple-digit date of the century.

"Our running joke is that we picked that date because we wanted to be married before the end of the world," said Brashear, a nod to the next celestially big-deal day of the month, Dec. 21 — the Mayan Long Count Calendar's purported last day of humanity.

Brashear, 29, and Kluesner, 40, said the commitment to a date was mostly about convenience. They had planned to marry someday, but when they saw a wedding-package deal offered by Devil's Thumb Ranch in Tabernash — 12 couples to marry at 12:12 on 12/12/12 for $1,200 — it was a no-brainer.

"We didn't have to do any planning — just show up with a ring and a marriage license," Brashear said.

And there's a fringe benefit, she said: "It will be an easy day for Sean to remember."

Other couples will line up at Las Vegas wedding chapels Wednesday as insurance for a lucky start to a new marriage. Likewise, some women have scheduled cesarean-section births to give their offspring a head start — at least numerologically.

This is pretty much the last chance at a triple-digit anything for a lifetime. Jan. 1, 2101, won't roll around for 88 years, and it will be another millennium before the arrival of Dec. 12, 3012.

For many, that makes Wednesday special.

"It's some sort of phenomenon," said Tim Johnson, co-owner of the Shining Lotus Metaphysical Bookstore in Denver. "Mostly, it's the auspiciousness of the number. People are looking for that to tie in to whatever is happening in their lives."

There will be a psychic fair at the store Wednesday, with two periods of meditation, and everything in the store will be 12.12 percent off. Businesses such as About Time Fitness in Englewood are offering one-day specials, $12 a month for 12 months.

The No. 12, according to tarot reader Mario Veo of Denver, is one of the perfect numbers, and the triple-digit date reduces to 3/3/3, which is number of divine perfection.

And in the world of astrology, the 12th House is the departure point — the last house in the zodiac before a new phase starts, according to Denver astrologist Mo Abdelbaki.

"It's about things changing and transforming," Abdelbaki said.

Finishing the old, entering the new.

Embracing possibilities.

Abdelbaki has no patience for those who link this date with the Mayan prediction of doom and disaster for Dec. 21.

"There is no connection," he said. "They're glomming that onto the whole 12/12/12 thing."

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